TULSA, Okla. — A 17,000-member megachurch deep in Oklahoma’s Bible Belt has been rattled by allegations that five employees waited two weeks to report the rape of a 13-year-old girl in a campus stairwell, allegedly by a church worker.

Tulsa police say the girl is among at least three victims of alleged sex crimes by two former employees of Victory Christian Center who face criminal charges. A child crimes investigator says more victims could surface as police continue to investigate.

Authorities, however, fear some in the large, tight-knit south Tulsa congregation may choose to pray about the allegations rather than provide concrete evidence.

Police said this week that the worldwide ministry’s pastor and co-founder, Sharon Daugherty, whose daily broadcasts are beamed via satellite to more than 200 countries, knew about the abuse allegations but trusted ministry employees to follow in-house policies on reporting such incidents.

Former church employee Chris Denman, 20, was arrested Sept. 5 for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl in a stairwell before a church service on Aug. 13. He also is charged with molesting a 15-year-old girl sometime between Aug. 13 and Aug. 17. He has pleaded not guilty and faces an Oct. 11 preliminary hearing, court records show.

Another ex-employee, 23-year-old Israel Shalom Castillo was arrested Thursday morning after turning himself in at the Tulsa jail. He is charged with making a lewd proposal to a child and using a computer to commit a sex crime.

Prosecutors this week also charged five church employees — including Daugherty’s son and daughter-in-law, who are both youth pastors — with failing to report the alleged assault between Aug. 15 and Aug. 30. John Daugherty, Charica Daugherty, Paul Willemstein, Anna George and Harold “Frank” Sullivan each face one misdemeanor count of failing to report child abuse and are due to be arraigned Wednesday in Tulsa County District Court.

Tulsa attorney Jason Robertson, who is representing the five employees, did not return a phone message seeking comment Thursday afternoon. An assistant in his firm indicated he was out of town.

The ministry — founded in 1981 by Sharon and the late Billy Joe Daugherty and shaped in a similar mold to Tulsa televangelist Oral Roberts’ charismatic Christian ministries — issued statements this week accepting responsibility for the lapse in reporting. A request to interview Daugherty was declined by a public relations firm hired by Victory Christian Center.

In a statement to The Associated Press issued Wednesday, the church said its employees failed to follow a written policy requiring any allegation of abuse to be reported by employees to the state’s Department of Human Services, and internally within one hour to their department head and the director of human resources.

The church explained that staff in the ministry’s youth department learned of the allegations and spent about a week checking it out before reporting it to supervisors and human resources. Once the complaint reached HR, “that department did not follow its own reporting policy,” the ministry admitted in the statement.

It was unclear from the ministry statement which of the allegations the youth department checked into on its own.

Sullivan, the HR director, fired the two men Aug. 24, and then left a message with a member of the church who works with an anti-child trafficking organization to seek advice on whom to contact. Sullivan was advised to call police on Aug. 27. The ministry said Sullivan exchanged voicemails with an officer until Aug. 30, when they finally connected and the officer told Sullivan to dial 911, which he did that day.

“We deeply regret that our employees did not report these incidents to authorities within the proper amount of time. This failure within our organization weighs heavily on us, because our purpose is to help people and minister to their needs,” the church said in the statement to AP. “Our internal response was unacceptable, and we are taking the proper steps to correct it.”

The five employees charged with failure to report abuse have been suspended by the ministry while it decides disciplinary action, the organization said.

Police Det. Cpl. Greg Smith, who works in the child crisis unit, said the ministry has fully cooperated with investigators since the alleged abuse was reported.

“There was a couple of weeks in which they were either unsure of what to do or didn’t do it, or who knows what,” he said. “There was a couple weeks where we probably lost some evidence.”

Smith said police are pursuing cases involving at least two more victims and another suspect. In one of the cases, police have failed to connect with the accuser. In the other, the victim’s parents are not cooperating, Smith said,

“They made a comment that the church is handling the situation and they’re going to continue to pray about it,” Smith said Thursday. “We’re still hoping to convince them to go forward with it.”

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

Dave556

@Dave556 And there is it! A christian child rapist sympathizer trying to change the subject away from the Catholic church of child molesters. Did your priests rape you or did you rape a kid, becasue all Christians are pedophiles.

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

Frab111

If correct, then those who felt it neccesary to wait to report, along with assailant should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. No excuse for this shit from anyone. I am sure they can be charged with an obstruction or abeiting crime. Again no excuse for covering something like this up from anyone regardless of theological affiliation

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

OnlyLiarsBlock

@OnlyLiarsBlock True, hopefully some within the group will have the internal fortitude in doing so to assist in a prosecution/ investiation. Either way, in not assisting this woman/ authorities, they would be no more than sacks of shit for hiding behind whatever faith they prescribe to in not doing the right thing

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

dmarlow310

well lets look at those times and see how old all the females who were getting married and having children were and lets see if the ancestors of those ppl condemned them too. ask any biblical scholar or rabbi and they will tell you the common age of marriage back then was 12 or under. look at the vatican their age of consent is still 12. look at spain(catholic country) their age of consent is 13

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

dmarlow310

well christians and muslims both believe in the miraculous birth of jesus to the virgin mary. also if you ask rabbis and biblical scholars they will tell you mary was roughly 12 years old...and she was miraculously impregnated by god

so you see the age of consent was different back then, then it is now. yet places like the vatican still have their age of consent at 12 and catholic countries like spain still have their age of consent at 13. so with that and this scandal at all tMore..he catholic churches and this one its safe to say the muslims arent the only ones with this problem that it has affected all races and religions and everyone has their sick fucks.Less..

Posted Sep-23-2012 By

dmarlow310

in other words i wont condemn anyone from that time for what they did because we dont know what the laws were. but nowadays the law still stands that the vatican has their age of consent at 12 and spain has theirs at 13. so if it were truly and it is in my opinion a disgusting act nowadays to sleep with children then your problem would be the vatican and countries like spain, italy, germany, austria etc etc who all have their ages of consent at 12-14 years old. you should be goiMore..ng ape shit over disgusting things like that...not something from ancient times. and it just wasnt the muslims prophet back then who was sleeping with young girls. it was the common age back then....so jews should be condemning their prophets and christians should be condemning theres. i mean look at this church for example....17,000 ppl and not even the leaders or the preacher came forward.....they all condoned these pedophile acts and the police are even saying the congregation doesnt want to talk to them about other cases that might have happened yet alone this one.Less..

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

plecostomus

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

socialistcomrade

Comment of user 'Zardoz003' has been deleted by author (after account deletion)!

Christians, like most mainstream religions, are like a cancer that has devastated a vital organ. They try to explain everything away as if it was some God's actual plan. They are sick and quite frankly, in this day and age, I find people this weak minded to be dangerous.

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

BullsOnParadeNYC

@BullsOnParadeNYC And there has never been any atheistic societies and/or dictators down through history that have caused any problems. Stop believing in GOD and you automatically become a benevolent, peace-loving, spiritual, inclusive, open minded, world citizen, who recycles and always carries jumper cables!

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

John Coleman

I guess you don't pay attention to the secular LA Unified School District. Yep, secular teachers molesting kids for years, and the unions protected them. Tax payer money hard at work. All child molesters should be punised, but you might ignore the secular ones just to prove a point.

I am sure for you the atheists communist of China who killed millions of people were not sick persons. You know these atheist used to kill Kung fu masters because they were too spiritual. The marMore..xist doctrine of the new government was officially atheist.

I bet you would like to errase this history. Atheist don't like to acknowledge their historic mass murders of innocent people in the communist regions such as: The former Soviet Union, China, and North Korea.

Weak minded are those who don't know their own history and brag as if they were intellectuals.Less..

Posted Sep-22-2012 By

Frab111

Religion is needed to made man do evil things. All religions are made up by more or less fucking criminals with the only intend to control people. There are no gods, no demons, no devils, no angles or whatever else bullshit religion came up with.